The screen blinked off, and Nelly stepped forward.
“Don’t do this!” I blurted out, appealing to her good sense. “It won’t change anything. I saved your lives!”
“And you’ll save them again,” she replied with unsettling resolve. “This is war, soldier, and we all have to make sacrifices. This time, we have to sacrifice you, but you shouldn’t worry — your sacrifice won’t be in vain. We almost have their headquarters. Just one direct hit, and we need time to get it ready. That means you have to head over. You’re the time we need.”
I jerked even harder. Anger deadened the pain, and a few of the zip ties burst. But that did nothing — there was another burst of gunfire, and my legs bent backward. Nelly had kneecapped me. My forehead slammed against the floor, the stars escorting me out of consciousness for a while. Like I’m ever going to help anyone ever again.
I was jolted awake. We were driving along a bumpy road, or maybe even just over rough terrain. In place of the zip ties, a thick chain was wrapped so tightly around me that I could barely breathe. Nelly was sitting nearby, and the only thing that kept me from spitting curses at her was the gag in my mouth. With everything in me screaming to hurt someone, anyone, I started scanning the area for game devices, only I didn’t find any. The troops didn’t use anything the game had to offer.
The vehicle flew off out of yet another ditch before skidding to a stop. Nelly hopped out, and I heard her order.
“We’re here, load out.”
Nobody cared much for my comfort, as they pulled me out pretty much as roughly as they could. My head banged against the vehicle, against the ground, against someone’s boot placed there for exactly that purpose. I was even disoriented for a bit, though I was able to find game devices within range when my head cleared. So many!
I mentally reached out for my phone, and one of the soldiers cursed when he couldn’t hold onto it. Smacking against my palm, it finally let my head read through the messages it was projecting.
You hacked the protection of 23 BRO-VI suits.
You hacked the protection of 23 SORT-VI automatic rifles.
You hacked the protection of 23 P-VI force fields.
Disperse! Incinerate! Destroy!
I couldn’t have cared less about the consequences. If they were handing me over to the alien players, there was no sense going quietly. The next thing I heard was spluttering voices that sounded anything but human — they weren’t expecting to be undressed on the spot. Weapons were cocked, reports were curtly barked to let Nelly know her troops were ready to fire, and the alien cursing intensified. But over it all, there was a calm metallic voice that sent shivers running down my spine.
“Enough. We continue with the plan. Take Mark Derwin and his dagger.”
“This isn’t us!” Nelly said just in case.
“We’re aware, and that’s why you’re leaving in one piece. We have our agreement, Nelly Oich — we’ll see you in a week.”
I closed my eyes, the move not making much difference seeing as how I was lying on my face, and relaxed, doing my best to sense where the voice was coming from. I knew who it was, and my guess was confirmed a few seconds later.
You’re trying to hack the defenses of player Five.
Probability of successful hack: 0%.
“Load him up,” Five said, and I was again pulled to my feet, that time by Olsen’s hairy countrymen. “And get those chains off him. Mark Derwin can’t do anything to us.”
Chapter 12
FIVE, or ULB89-5, was a robot in the mold of the others before it, a clothes iron armed to the teeth and mounted on a flying platform. Smaller than Nine, I still didn’t have the slightest doubt that the one in front of me would have won hands down if the two had ever clashed. Both it and its platform were remarkably detailed, the quality showing through in each part. It was like comparing a Swiss watch to cheap Chinese knock-offs.
I tensed up yet again, trying to snap the chain, but it didn’t work. No matter how high you got it, your strength didn’t turn you into superman. Sure, I was much stronger, though I still had my limits. Instead, the robot’s servants helped me out of my bonds. But as I got ready to make a break for it, I noticed something shimmering weakly around me. It suddenly made sense why Five wasn’t worried about its safety — one cage had been exchanged for another, the newer one more advanced. I was stuck inside some kind of force field. Just in case, I reached out to touch it. What if it’s just an illusion? One electric shock accompanied by the smell of burnt skin later, I was sure it was anything but illusory. The anger got the better of me, and I slammed a fist into the ground. But that didn’t get me anything besides some bones crunching. It was a solid cage.
Cradling my hand, I decided to take a look around. We were on a big flying platform that was moving slowly but surely above the trees in a direction I couldn’t get a feel for. There weren’t many creatures around, just Five and a few of its services. My attempts to hack into the equipment using device control got me nowhere. Nothing happened when I tried to hack the protection the general’s spawn had, either.
Hacking +10 (100).
Anatomy master +10 (100).
Perception +10 (100).
But I wasn’t about to throw in the towel. I had 300 free attribute points in reserve, my phone worked fine inside the force field, and I was able to print out a syringe with 90 attributes that I quickly stuck my leg with. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much of a response. Only Five turned toward me and stood there motionless for a while, a message finally appearing in my head:
Your phone was hacked.
Coins withdrawn. Current total: 0.
Virtual storage looted.
A pile of my belongings appeared next to the robot, and my heart skipped a beat when I realized how strong it was. With a few arms, the creature picked up Ulbaron, Raptor, Zelda, and Valkyrie, while everything else began blinking and disappearing, turning into black dust. The worst was when it was Flyer’s turn. The robot couldn’t have cared less about the drone. A step or two away, my flying machine appeared only to be swept into Five’s storage.
“You did a good job learning how to hide, personified noa,” Five said suddenly as it continued to study my equipment. “I had to break a sweat trying to sense where you were. And where these were.”
Seven noa stones dropped out of Ulbaron’s secret pocket — my loot from the piece of equipment at the church. But what happened next cut me to the quick. The four named items, my pride and joy, were turned into dark ash. The part of my brain that integrated with them went blank. And once it had been emptied completely, my phone found its way back to my hand with an apologetic slap. A few practiced taps later, my mood soured completely. There was no virtual storage, no ability to sell items. It wasn’t even the way it had been when I’d died and come back. No, it was a reset, leaving me with no money, no equipment, and no noa. Nothing. Although…
There was something left. Five had either not noticed or not seen the two devices in my phone belonging to the dead Tsarter fighters. I hadn’t been able to hack into them back then, and I hadn’t bothered since. They were my one shot.
“Your heart rate just increased,” Five said, the metallic voice grating. “You found а way to recover, so I must have missed something.”
My phone flew back over to the robot. Ten minutes of tinkering later, it crushed the device into an electronic pancake, though I was able to remain calm. You couldn’t hurt game devices like that. Holding out my hand, I waited for the game to reprint it. The Tsarter devices were still there. Five hadn’t seen them.
“Whatever you might have hidden, it won’t help you,” Five announced. “You’ll complete your assignment, after which you’ll be destroyed permanently and with no hope of respawn.”
“I think someone mentioned something about returning me whole and unharmed,” I couldn’t help but say.
“Humans are idiots. They want to believe what tickles their ears, what makes sense to them. Agreements are nothing. The game
is what matters.”
“So, go for it. What are you waiting for?” I wanted to goad the robot into showing some kind of emotion or even giving something away. “Take me out and be done with it.”
“There’s a job we need done, and you’re the only one who can do it.”
“You mean the rainbow pearl? What, you found a digger?”
Five said nothing, which told me more than words ever could have.
“Let me guess — it told you the only way to boost dungeon levels is to make sacrifices. And the only sacrificial dagger in this hexagon is in a secret pocket of yours, yes? Good luck, Five.” I snorted, a glimmer of hope appearing. The aliens didn’t know anything, and I could use that. The important thing was to avoid giving in to their torture. Of course, I had no doubt they would end up torturing me, but I’d already been through multiple trials. It was like I’d been getting ready for that moment.
“We need the pearl, and you’re going to find it. You’ll be destroyed once you do.”
I didn’t respond. A couple hours later, my update was scheduled to complete, and I was planning on seeing if my attempts at hacking would be any more successful. There was no doubt in my mind that Five and its equipment could be hacked. It was just a shame my money and equipment were gone, though I forced myself to accept that fact and move on. I was going to claim compensation later.
If I live that long.
The flight lasted a while. Five lost interest in me, the servants didn’t come anywhere near me, and I was finally able to get some sleep. Of course, it was cold, and nobody thought to give me something to wear, so I had to lie down on the chilled metal in nothing but my underwear. But as soon as my head hit the ground, my problems took care of themselves. I was fast asleep. When I woke up again, the sun had been replaced by the moon. But I didn’t wake up on my own — a conversation happening nearby did that for me. Five was giving orders to two massive hunks of metal, and my perception had no trouble recognizing them as Eight and Seven.
“…his safety. I need to take care of the mercenaries — Tsarter really wants to show off for the owner.”
“We’ll need time to get everything ready,” Eight said. “The natural players and changed are already in place, so we just need to agree on which of the owner’s players it’s going to be.”
“It doesn’t matter. Pick any of the lower ranking ones.”
“We need the knife. As soon as the dungeon level is high enough, Mark Derwin will be liquidated,” Seven said.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. The pearl is first.”
“Mission accepted, sir,” Eight boomed. “We’ll take care of it.”
“Take control of the cage and remember that Mark is able to hack it.”
Five signaled something and flew off briskly. Much more briskly, in fact, than our jalopy was going. Wait a second, we aren’t moving at all! I stood up and looked around to see that we were right by the sea.
“He’s awake,” Seven said, turning its antennas toward me.
“I’ll fix that,” Eight replied quickly, a powerful surge of electricity clutching my heart and sending my body into convulsions. I collapsed to the ground and just barely clung to my last scraps of consciousness. The surge was repeated. I jerked, my reflexes taking over. It was only when foam started bubbling out of my mouth that the treatment stopped.
“Put guards on him and hit him with a shock every hour,” Seven said. “Just remember that he needs to live long enough to see the dungeon.”
“Mission accepted, sir,” Eight replied. He apparently had a catchphrase. “I’ll take care of it.”
The robots flew off the platform, some Shurvans taking their place. The hairy humanoids picked up my energy cage and carried me over to a nondescript gray building that looked like a hangar. But I couldn’t really get a good look — I was too busy pretending to be unconscious. Of course, I did notice the enormous flying platform hurtle off into the night.
Another surge of electricity ran through my body, and I thought back fondly to the trials. Not only was my impenetrable skin giving me a shot at survival; it was making the whole nightmare livable. Even ignoring the smell of burnt meat, I focused on sending spittle flying in all directions without making a sound. The treatment ended as soon as it began, giving me a chance to catch my breath. A door banged shut — for the next hour, nobody would be bothering me.
And that was my chance.
You’re trying to hack the defenses of energy cage EC-VI.
Sum total of your skill levels: 400 (device control: 100, hacking: 100, perception: 100, anatomy master: 100).
Sum total of EC-VI’s skill levels (current owner: RN554-7): 380 (hacking protection: 95, resistance: 95, resilience: 95, willpower: 95).
Probability of successful hack: 5% (1 — 360/400).
Attempt 1… Unsuccessful.
…
Attempt 32… Successful.
***
You connected to energy cage EC-VI.
I could barely keep myself from destroying the cage immediately. But before I did that, I needed to give it a good once-over. It was a good thing my brain kicked in, too — there were several traps set to signal when anything happened to the cage, and it took me a while to figure out how to beat the security system. Ultimately, I squeezed through a small hole at the very bottom.
Finding myself in the middle of an enormous hangar, I realized how uncomfortable I felt. Without Ulbaron, I was naked; without Raptor, I was blind; without Valkyrie and Fang, I was useless. But I was alive.
A quick scan told me there weren’t any devices in the vicinity, though I didn’t particularly believe that. Hiding from a bare ability was as easy as taking a quick nap. Getting to the door, I peeked out to find that nobody was there. The door itself was made of thin sheet metal, so I was able to bend a piece back far enough to let me out. Of course, there were some guards — not far from the door, I noticed two Shurvans. They were laughing and pointing in the direction of the hangar. One was twitching, mocking how I’d looked when they’d shocked me, and my blood boiled. I’d had enough.
Creeping up to them on my stomach, I leaped to my feet and smacked their heads together. They were clearly not expecting me and therefore unable to put up any meaningful resistance. And with no need to leave them alive, I didn’t worry about how hard they bounced off each other. In fact, the impact was so powerful that their two heads just mushed into each other. Grabbing the bodies, I hauled them off away from the passage.
There wasn’t anything interesting in their phones, and their wallets were nearly empty, too. Fifteen hundred put together? Seriously? Neither of them had armor or anything else from the game. On the other hand, I had bigger things to worry about: I needed to find a good hiding spot and figure out what to do next.
As it turned out, the hangar was part of a small airfield built right up against the sea. It struck me as an odd place for planes to take off and land given the seagulls that were everywhere, but I was no expert. The surrounding fence was topped with barbed wire. That might have been a problem if it hadn’t been for the fact that part of it was missing, replaced by stone boulders. I scaled them carefully, left the airfield, and took off running as soon as I got to the trees. Judging by my map, there was a dungeon about five kilometers away. The only shot I saw at staying alive was getting inside it and waiting there for a couple hours. I really needed to buy time.
But I had to change my plans when I got to the spot. There were ten champions standing guard, and the swaying ground told me there was a shrew somewhere down below, too. Deciding against risking it, I wedged myself between the roots of an old tree and froze. Even with the monsters there, it seemed like the safest place to me. This will be the last place they look.
You’re trying to hack the defenses of Lurkan Po’s phone.
Hacking store… Successful! Access to level 6 items unlocked.
Hacking wallet… Successful! Cash: 4360000 coins.
Hacking personal data… Successful!
Hacking contact list… Successful!
Hacking map… Successful!
Hacking storage contents… Successful!
Hacking phone functionality… Successful!
My phone dinged and gave me back my virtual storage and level six exchange. Deciding against hacking the second Tsarter phone immediately, I instead left it as an insurance policy in case something else happened to me. The map and personal data were also better left for another time. That’s not what’s important right now.
I still had nine free items available to pick from the maximum level I’d unlocked, not to mention two named items. The choice wasn’t an easy one. I needed protection, a scanner, and a weapon — just about everything. Ultimately, I settled on Valkyrie and Zelda, replacing Ulbaron with a regular BRO-VI suit and helmet, not to mention a level six universal force field, and Raptor with a regular drone. I didn’t even change the name that time. Whether it was Flyer or Mark-1, the result was the same. So, I just left it Drone. That made it simple. Not having a grenade launcher was tough, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that. I didn’t have any more bonuses, and the coins… I spent them on consumables and a syringe with free skill points. Five had cracked me like an egg, and that meant I needed to grow a thicker shell.
Pearl of the South (World of the Changed Book #2): LitRPG Series Page 16